Professional painters and do-it-yourselfers alike often undertake painting projects to decorate interior and exterior surfaces of commercial and residential buildings. For example, painters may paint the walls and ceilings of family rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, hallways, offices, and other interior surfaces. Similarly, painters paint exterior surfaces of homes and decks, office buildings, and other exterior surfaces either for decorating or for protecting surfaces from the elements. Painting projects often require great attention to detail, and some projects require large volumes of paint, stain, or any other fluid that is spreadable with a brush. Those types of projects can become particularly time consuming.
In the methods that are currently available and have long been used for painting projects, when a painter is prepared to paint a surface, he or she uses a paint brush similar to those available for sale on hardware and other store shelves. The painter dips the paint brush into a bucket of paint before beginning to paint a surface. The repeated motion of turning toward the paint container (e.g., a paint bucket) and dipping a paint brush into the bucket of paint before painting in a stroke-like pattern on any given surface can become quite time consuming during large projects, when the process of dipping and painting can go on for hours or days at a time.
Repeatedly transferring paint, stain, or any other fluid from a paint can or other container to a painting surface and then painting the surface can result in paint falling from the brush and onto the floor or other surrounding surface. This can lead to not only a surplus of wasted paint, but also a messy project space. Similarly, a painter managing both a paint can or other paint container and a paint brush can lead to a hazardous situation, especially when the painting project requires the use of a ladder. With all the back and forth motion associated with painting using traditional methods, there is an increased risk of knocking the paint container off the ladder, or of a painter falling from the ladder and injuring himself or those around him.
Humidity, heat, sunlight, wind and other environmental factors also determine how the quality of a particular paint job turns but. For example, when painting trim with a glossy surface, time dictates the quality of the finish and brush marks left behind. The more time it takes to paint a particular surface, and the more time it takes to recoat a paint brush with paint from a paint can, brush marks are often left behind. When steps are taken to eliminate the number of times of getting paint from a paint source to a particular surface to be painted, the painting process and finished appearance can have a greater visual appeal and effect. For example, when dipping a paint brush into paint and going back and forth to an area just brushed, many things can happen if not done in a timely fashion. Back pedaling to blend paint and brush marks evenly onto a particular surface can leave very noticeable deeper brush marks or grooves during this process. In addition, the use of a particular type of paint such as a glossy paint, a semi-gloss paint, a satin finish paint and so forth will also drastically affect the attempt to blend both the paint and brush marks evenly during a particular painting project. These brush marks and grooves can often times be seen at a distance due to light changes and depending upon the angle of view of that particular surface. Continuous brushing would eliminate these factors and greatly reduce the need for back pedaling to blend paint and brush marks evenly into a particular painted surface.
Existing “solutions” for the time-consuming and potentially dangerous traditional painting methods are not effective. For example, automatic power paint sprayers often require a heavy-duty air compressor, which can be cumbersome at a painting project site. The power sprayers are also subject to air pressure that is difficult to control, and the likelihood of “overspraying” is greatly increased. Also, the sprayers lack the fine control that is only available with traditional brushes, and it is nearly impossible to properly paint corners and detailed structures that require delicate, precise strokes with the existing sprayer systems.
Such sprayer systems are also difficult to clean. Any time saved by the power sprayer machines being able to powerfully and voluminously distribute paint to a paint surface is negated by time associated with cleaning both the sprayer tip, its associated tubing, the sprayer mechanism and the container used to store paint prior to its being sprayed.
When painting trim with intricate detail or long stretches of a particular surface to be painted, it is desirable to use continuous brush strokes over such surfaces so as to reduce the time necessary to complete the painting of that particular surface thereby avoiding visible brush strokes in the painted surface as well as reducing the painter's back and forth motion between the paint container and the brush to accomplish the particular task. Reducing the number of steps to complete a particular paint project likewise reduces the time involved as well as the quality of the finished product.
It is therefore desirable to provide a paint brush transfer system that is compact, easy to use, and efficient at distributing paint to a paint surface, thus reducing the work that needs to be performed by a painter. It is also desirable to provide a paint transfer system that enables continuous brushing of a particular surface to be painted and is likewise easy to clean and easy to prepare for the next painting project. Such a system not only reduces the overall time to complete a particular project, but it should also eliminate the need to carry around an open paint container in close proximity to a painter's brush hand.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.